Top five movie car chases

The Sunday Times hitlist listed the top 5 movie car chases in memory of the grandfather of stunts, Bud Ekins died earlier this month at the age of 77. He appeared in several films including The Great Escape, Bullitt and coordinated the stunts in CHiPS. I won’t subject you to Poncherello, but thanks to Youtube, here are the best car chases of all time:

The French Connection (1971)
… it’s never better than when Hackman’s character Popeye Doyle commandeers a Pontiac LeMans and hares off after an elevated E-train driven by a hitman.

Bullitt (1968)
Bud Ekins drove Steve McQueen’s Ford Mustang when it went airborne in the following car chase around San Francisco!

The Bourne Identity (2002)
Could this chase sequence be even better than the one in the Italian Job? The old British Leyland Mini shows what it could do on the streets of Paris.

Vanishing Point (1971)
Don’t ask Barry Newman to deliver your high-powered car. He might just get into a few scraps on the way. This is the trailer for the film. Chase clips are on Youtube but not embeddable unfortunately.

The Blues Brothers (1980)
Apparently this was the most expensive car chase ever, and it’s easy to see why. Jake and Elwood give the police a run for their money!

I love the chase in the Bourne movies. They just really seem to be done well. The shots that really get me, however, are those that we, as the viewer never see coming, and all of a sudden, the car is impacted with all the sight and sounds magnified in Dolby Digital! Kind of like in the series of Volkswagen ads. Impactful!

“The Bourne Identity” is a great action film. It is a good fairly easy to follow movie that is based on an extremely confusing and difficult to read book. Matt Damon is awesome as Jason Bourne this film shows how much a better actor he is than buddy Ben Affleck. Rent or buy this film today you will not be disappointed. Fun to watch again and again. Get the new extended version for even more thrills.

The Golden Compass
First of a three part fantasy/sci-fi series. Some people hate it because of it's anti God message but it's a great read. I found it hard to put down. There's even a Snopes article about the film adaptation.